One framing I keep coming back to is this: historical analogies are useful when they sharpen questions, not when they pretend to predict the script. What is happening: The value of history is rarely in exact repetition. It is in seeing how incentives, leverage and policy constraints rhyme across cycles. Why it matters: That is how the past becomes a decision tool instead of a decoration. In practice: An analogy helps most when it tells you what variable to monitor now, not when it tells you to copy a past trade blindly. Watch for: The mistake is treating similarity of headlines as similarity of market structure. Useful lens: A useful review question is which funding, incentive or cash-flow channel is actually doing the work. The point is not to memorize the label. The point is to know what variable is actually doing the work.